Hours After Putin Turns 70, Bridge Between Russia and Crimea Ignites: 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President'

Mar. 15, 2025

A bridge linking Russia and the Crimean Peninsula was the center of an explosion on Saturday when a truck blew up and collapsed a section of it. The bridge sits over the Kerch Strait, which is a supply route forMoscow’s forces in Ukraineand is part of the port of Sevastopol, the location of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Russian PresidentVladimir Putincalled the explosion an “act of terrorism” from Ukraine on Sunday, two days after his 70th birthday, despite Ukraine officials not claiming responsibility for the attack, reportedReuters.

UKRAINE SECURITY SERVICE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Ukrainian officials, nearly eight months afterRussia first invaded the country, have been sharing some positive messages about the explosion but have not taken responsibility for it. Among them, Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, used the phrase “the beginning” in a Twitter statement featuring the bridge.

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Podolyak later responded to Putin’s claims of terrorism, saying that “there is only one terrorist state here, and the whole world knows who it is.” As he noted, Putin’s statement came after a Russian missile attack struck an apartment block and other residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and killed at least 13 people and injured “more than 50.”

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Just as recently as Thursday, PresidentJoe Bidenissued awarning about Putin, when he said that the Russian leader is “not joking” about nuclear threats. The way he explained it, the world has “not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

“First time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use [of a] nuclear weapon if in fact, things continue down the path they are going,” Biden said at a New York City fundraiser. “I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp?”

source: people.com